Thursday, January 28, 2010

While he was living with Maynard, Salinger continued to write in a disciplined fashion, a few hours every morning. According to Maynard, by 1972 he had completed two new novels.[79][80] In a rare 1974 interview with The New York Times, he explained: "There is a marvelous peace in not publishing.... I like to write. I love to write. But I write just for myself and my own pleasure."[81] According to Maynard, he saw publication as "a damned interruption".[82] In her memoir, Margaret Salinger describes the detailed filing system her father had for his unpublished manuscripts: "A red mark meant, if I die before I finish my work, publish this 'as is,' blue meant publish but edit first, and so on.

The "Fat Lady" is a story Seymour told both Franny and Zooey when they were younger. Zooey brings it up over the phone to Franny at the very end of the novel. When Zooey was a child celebrity on "It's a Wise Child," he refused to shine his shoes since he thought the people running the show didn't deserve any respect. Seymour told him to shine his shoes for the Fat Lady, and for some reason, says Zooey, it made sense. Franny chimes in that Seymour told her the same thing – to be funny for the Fat Lady – and that it made sense to her, too.